Tigers Be Still
by Baylor University Theatre
Jun. 18 - Jun. 21, 2015
Thursday-Sunday
There is a tiger on the loose in suburbia. But that isn't the real story in Tigers Be Still. "This is the story of how I stopped being a total disaster and got my life on track," says Sherry Wickman, who recently acquired her first job as an art teacher and therapist, effectively pulling herself out of a depression. Full of newfound optimism, Sherry knows that if she can just inspire her couch-dwelling sister, Grace, and her bed-bound mother, Wanda, to take a leap of faith to discover their own purpose, they can make it out of their darkness, too. Sherry's principal is struggling with a loss of his own, but remains focused on solving his son's problems. Putting all of her effort into negotiating everyone else's problems (and avoiding the tiger), Sherry finds herself neglecting her own needs. This comedy about depression is "amply stocked with whimsy-tinted woes" while the "subtly funny dialogue and the vivid, truthful characters keep the play grounded in prickly emotional authenticity." (New York Times review)
From Waco Tribune: an article by Carl Hoover, June 18, 2015
The humor in Kim Rosenstock’s “Tigers Be Still” drew in Baylor directing grad student Heidi Breeden, and the quiet message beneath about depression, which afflicts the play’s four characters, kept her there.
“It’s funny to say ‘It’s a comedy about depression,’ but it is,” she said. “And the more I dig into it, I find a hidden softness in it.”
Sherry Wickham (Tiffany Navarro) has been unemployed for a long while after earning a degree in art therapy, so when she finally gets a job, she’s eager to make it work. Her first two clients are father and son, a middle school principal, Joseph (Ryan Buchle), and his son, Zach (Lucas McCutcher).
They’re grieving the death of Joseph’s wife/Zach’s mom, and there’s a little complication in that there’s a past history between Joseph and Sherry’s mother.
There’s a bigger problem, though: Sherry doesn’t have an office, so she has to do her therapy sessions at home, which just happens to be where Sherry’s sister, Grace (Rebecca Janney), has been camped out on the couch for weeks after catching her fiance cheating on her.
Sherry has to get Grace out of the house for her clients, and that’s easier said than done when both are suffering from depression.
It’s a comedy, staged in the round, yet with a thoughtful message underneath.
That combination is the sweet spot for the 31-year-old Breeden, a University of North Carolina at Charlotte grad who came to Baylor after several years as a secondary school theater teacher. She decided she wanted to do theater that helped build and engage a community and found “Tigers Be Still” an ideal piece that was entertaining even as it helped audiences recognize issues around them.
“Mental illness is a presence in everybody’s life,” she said. “(The characters of ‘Tigers Be Still’) are all trying to find their way through the darkness. . . . The (message) is we need each other.”
“Tigers Be Still” isn’t recommended for young children due to mature language and subjects.
Tigers Be Still
by Kim Rosenstock
Baylor University Theatre
June 18 - June 21, 2015
7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, Theatre 11, Baylor University’s Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center; $15. Call 710-1865 or go online at www.baylor.edu/theatre
